Milan Kundera

 

Dear Prof. Tomas Kubicek,

It was very nice to meet you in your library (www.mzk.cz) in Brno, Czech Republic on August 31, 2022. It was very interesting to listen to you to introduce Mr. Milan Kundera, a world-famous Czeck born philosopher writer. Actually, one of my classmates who live in Canada, and another young Chinese lady who currentl live in China, have read “The Unbearable Lightness of Being”, and my wife also watched the movie directed by Philip Kaufman. They commented it was because of similar history with China, the vogue and foggy expectation, and the love story, respectively. I think the background of Mr. Milan Kundera’s novel was clear for all three commentators, but their own life experience very much geographically different. Probably Milan Kundera has been good luck (maybe wrong expression) because I found that his work was recognized quite early, for instance, he got Jerusalem Prize for Literature in 1985 already. Of course, that is because his work brought many new aspects that meet people’s desires in time. So, his books have been translated into many languages worldwide. The library lady in my local commune (Porvoo, Finland) said Milan Kundera is famous when I asked about his books, there are 3-5 books in Finnish and Swedish in the local library. Interestingly the cover pages of each book are differently designed by the local publishers, which I understood the culture of literature also has to be rooted locally. I still like to mention one thing, Porvoo, where I live now, is a small city, but biggest publisher of Finland, WSOY was born and operated in this city for more than 100 years, I think now the headquarter has been moved to Helsinki or merged with other giant publisher.

These are short, small thoughts what I can gather at the moment about Milan Kundera. But I have truly enjoyed the communication about Milan Kundera, I think I will keep doing so.

Best Regards

Cheng

Porvoo, Finland

尊敬的 Tomas Kubicek 教授，

很高兴于 2022 年 8 月 31 日在您位于捷克共和国布尔诺的图书馆 (www.mzk.cz) 见到您。听您介绍世界著名的捷克出生的哲学家米兰昆德拉先生，非常有趣。作家。其实，我的一个住在加拿大的同学和另一位住在中国的中国年轻女士，都看过《生命中不能承受之轻》，我的妻子也看过菲利普考夫曼导演的电影。他们评论说是因为与中国相似的历史，时尚和迷茫的期待，以及爱情故事。我认为米兰昆德拉先生小说的背景对三位评论家来说都很清楚，但他们自己的生活经历在地理上却大不相同。可能米兰昆德拉运气不错（可能是错误的表达方式），因为我发现他的作品很早就被认可了，比如他已经在 1985 年获得了耶路撒冷文学奖。当然，那是因为他的作品带来了很多新的方面，及时满足了人们的需求。因此，他的书已在世界范围内被翻译成多种语言。我当地社区（芬兰波尔沃）的图书馆女士说，当我问起米兰昆德拉的书时，他很有名，当地图书馆里有 3-5 本芬兰语和瑞典语的书。有趣的是，每本书的封面都是由当地出版商设计的，我知道文学文化也必须植根于当地。我还是想提一件事，我现在居住的波尔沃是一个小城市，但是芬兰最大的出版商，WSOY在这个城市诞生并经营了100多年，我想现在总部已经搬到赫尔辛基了或与其他巨头出版商合并。

这些是我目前所能收集到的关于米兰昆德拉的简短想法。但我真的很享受关于米兰昆德拉的交流，我想我会继续这样做。

此致

成

芬兰波尔沃